On Wednesday, September 25, 2013 11:43:17 AM UTC-4, ChloeP wrote:
I recently moved into an older property, from early 1950s, and we've got

an oil burning boiler that's at least 20 years old if not older.

I want to replace it with something more efficient but don't know

whether to go for gas or electric.

I presume electric is more efficient but more expensive, I'm not sure it

evens out in the end.

Electric at 100% isn't that much more efficient than a new
high efficiency 90%+ boiler to make up for the huge
difference in energy prices, unless you're living somewhere
with unusual prices for energy. Also, you have a gas boiler,
so electric what? Resistance to heat the water? Never seen
that done for a whole house. Heat pump? That makes more
sense from an energy standpoint, but I don't think heat pumps
can heat water to the temp typical baseboard heat needs.
And even if it does, you're looking at a much higher cost
that a new gas boiler. Most logical thing is going to be
a new high eff gas boiler.

But what about AC? If that is a consideration, switching to
a gas furnace/AC system would give you heat and AC, but that
is obviously going to cost a lot more because I presume the
house has no duct system. How much that would cost depends
on how the house is constructed and how hard or easy it would
be to run the ducts.